A mom has called Zara out for selling a T-shirt that she believes is not appropriate for children. She explained that she doesn't perceive herself as being "overly sensitive about clothing," but to her, there was something so obviously wrong with the strawberry T-shirt she found in the girls' section while shopping at Zara.
The retailer has since apologized for its offensive T-shirt and pulled it from its shelves, but some people don't see anything wrong with the T-shirt in question. "Am I overthinking this?" the mom wrote over her video shared on TikTok.
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The language used on the T-shirt seemed sexually suggestive to the mom.
In her video, the mom showed the front of a white T-shirt in the girls' section at Zara. One side of the shirt featured black and red text that read "The Perfect Snack." The other side read, "The Strawberry: A small burst of sweet joy."
But the front of the shirt was not the most offensive part to the mom.
The back of the shirt was much worse in the mom's opinion.
The back of the shirt featured images of strawberries. To Laura, the worst part was the text on the back of the white T-shirt, which read, "Take a bite. A burst of sweet delight, making it the perfect summer snack."
The message printed on the shirt left the woman feeling "shocked."
"I would never have my girls in this T-shirt," she said on TikTok. "Is it just me or is this just plain wrong in plain sight?"
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Some people told the mom it's really just her.
"Personally, I’m disgusted – who is buying this t-shirt for their child?!!" the mom captioned her video. But some people who commented on it thought she was simply overreacting.
"It’s literally just a strawberry ," one person told the mom. But she defended her stance: "'The perfect snack' and 'take a bite'…. is not just a strawberry. It's extremely suggestive for a child to wear ."
Others agreed that the T-shirt seemed problematic.
While some people looked at the T-shirt and saw "just a strawberry," many others saw the problem immediately.
"'The perfect snack' is so wrong when you hear what people use the word snack for," one person commented, referring to the slang term "snack," which is used to describe an attractive person.
Others pointed out that kids wouldn't notice anything suggestive about it — but other people could.
"Parents should wake up sometimes, because not everyone looks at their children the same way," another person commented.
Laura responded with, "Exactly this… people are saying 'a child would never think anything of it' it’s not children I’m concerned about…"
Zara removed the shirt from its stores.
In a statement shared with multiple outlets, Zara claimed that the type of "snack" mentioned on the shirt was the traditional type — not the slang term used to call someone attractive.
"There was no intention for the use of the word ‘snack’ on this T-shirt to imply anything other than the traditional meaning of the word, as evidenced by the image of a strawberry on the garment," Zara said, per the New York Post.
"However, we now understand that some individuals have interpreted the term differently," the statement continued. "Therefore, we have removed the T-shirt from stores and our website and we apologize for any misunderstanding or offense caused."
